


The Misfortune of Others Tastes Like Honey

by jiyuuhonpou



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Crossdressing, Gen or Pre-Slash, M/M, team rakuzan is full of little shits, the biggest little shit is akashi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-13
Updated: 2014-07-13
Packaged: 2018-02-08 17:59:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1950813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jiyuuhonpou/pseuds/jiyuuhonpou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mayuzumi's class runs a maid cafe for Rakuzan High School's Cultural Festival, much to his chagrin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Misfortune of Others Tastes Like Honey

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nekonotabi](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=nekonotabi).



> I wrote this in response to the librarian meme on tumblr - the prompt was page 69, and the closest book to me at the time was _Memories of a Dead End_ by Banana Yoshimoto. The exact line used was:
>
>> あれは私なりの直感の動きだったのだと思う。そんなふうにせっかく何かを感じたんだから、そこで止めておけばよかった。  
>  (I think that was my instinct’s movement. It would have been better if I stopped right there when I had the chance, since it had gone out of its way to make me feel something.)  
> 

The front cover of the novel pops up in Chihiro’s mind suddenly and unexpectedly while he stands in line to pay for lunch. The book had won second place in a light novel competition back when Chihiro was a freshman, so he’d purchased it on a whim. It was a mildly enjoyable tale of a haughty tsundere maid bossing around her long-suffering deadpan snarker of a teenaged master, but since it didn’t meet Chihiro’s minimum of cute younger sisters necessary to deem the story interesting, he’d dropped the series after the first volume.

He hadn’t been doing anything in particular to warrant a recollection of that specific novel, so he shakes the mental image off quickly. _Speaking of light novels, the latest volume of Empty Wooden Calm_ _comes out today_ , he thinks to himself as he hands his money to the cashier. _Maybe I should just skip classes the rest of the day so I can buy it._

Looking back, Chihiro figures that was his intuition trying to warn him of the danger that was coming. It isn’t until the day afterward that Chihiro realizes what a mistake it was to not show up for after-school homeroom on the day their class was supposed to vote on their contribution to the annual school cultural festival.

 

* * *

 

“I hate you all,” Chihiro says by way of greeting, which probably isn’t the best way to welcome customers, but it’s not like he’s getting extra points for hospitality.

“That’s no good at all, Mayuzumi-san!” snickers Hayama. “You should say, ‘Welcome, young masters!”

“I hate you all, _young masters_ ,” Chihiro repeats, slamming down a cup of lukewarm tea for Hayama. He’d made sure to use old tea bags when brewing the tea; small victories were still victories in his book. “And stop laughing already,” he adds as he places another teacup in front of Nebuya, who hasn’t stopped guffawing since he the moment he entered Chihiro’s classroom with the rest of the Rakuzan starting members.

“Ignore them, they’re both buffoons,” Mibuchi says sweetly as he accepts a teacup from Chihiro. Chihiro doesn’t buy Mibuchi’s grown-up act for one second; Mibuchi laughed just as loud as the other two Uncrowned Kings when he first saw Chihiro. “The lace detailing on your outfit is exquisite, though,” he gushes as he leans in closer to inspect the frilly hemline of Chihiro’s pale blue miniskirt, much to Chihiro’s horror. “As expected of Rakuzan’s sewing club!”

“Touching the staff is prohibited,” Chihiro grits through his teeth as he sidesteps out of Mibuchi’s reach and jerks his thumb at the relevant warning sign prominently posted by the door. He’d leap off Kyoto Tower sooner than he’d admit it, but he _does_ grudgingly agree that the sewing club has really outdone themselves this year; they managed to hit all the correct moe points of a maid uniform, from the lace pinafore complete with a painstakingly embroidered Rakuzan logo right down to the A-class _zettai ryouiki_ ratio of the hand-knit thigh-high socks.

“What are the four of you doing here, anyway? Don’t you have to be helping your own classes or something?” asks Chihiro as he sets the last teacup on his tray in front of Akashi. Akashi at least had enough grace to remain silent while the rest of his entourage laughed their heads off, but he hasn’t stopped staring at Chihiro since he walked in either, and Chihiro’s positive that Akashi’s simply conserving his energy in order to deliver some soul-crushing zingers to Chihiro’s pride later on.

“We couldn’t let Sei-chan do his student council rounds by himself!” says Mibuchi, horrified at the mere suggestion of leaving “Sei-chan” alone to fend off his adoring masses.

“Did you really think we were gonna stay away once we heard a class actually did a cross-dressing maid café?” Hayama leers at Chihiro from across the table, and Chihiro grips his serving tray a little harder to prevent himself from trying to reach over and punch the grin right off Hayama’s face. “That it’s _your_ class just happens to be icing on the cake!”

“Free food, too,” gasps Nebuya in between laughs. Chihiro briefly weighs the pros and cons of smacking both Hayama and Nebuya in the head with his empty tray, but decides the effort required to clean up and replace a broken tray would outweigh the satisfaction gained from temporarily hurting Hayama (he’d need something significantly heavier than a plastic serving tray in order to inflict anything greater than mild annoyance on Nebuya, unfortunately.)

“We have kitsune soba and vegetable curry,” Chihiro responds instead.

Nebuya stops laughing immediately. “No meat?”

“Too expensive,” Chihiro shrugs. _Our class blew our budget on these stupid uniforms_ , he doesn’t add, but he takes satisfaction in the crestfallen expression on Nebuya’s face anyway.

“It’s quite all right, Eikichi, I brought extra vouchers,” Akashi says, holding up a handful of colorful paper strips with the words “Student Council – Food Coupon” printed neatly on the front. Chihiro collects the coupons silently, choosing not to point out the irony of the richest person in school being exempt from paying for food services.

“I want vegetable curry!” Hayama chirps, waving his hands excitedly. “Reo-nee, you want the kitsune soba, right?”

Mibuchi looks mildly affronted. “Koutarou, you shouldn’t go around just deciding what other people want—”

“Just give us eight of each and I’ll eat all the extra!” Nebuya interjects, and the three second-years quickly begin bickering over what to order.

Chihiro rolls his eyes and starts to turn away, but freezes when he gets a look at Akashi. Akashi’s regarding him with the same amount of fascination as one would a decorative potted plant, which is probably the most interest Akashi’s ever shown in anything unrelated to basketball, shogi, chess, or the bitter defeated tears of those who dare oppose him.

Chihiro recognizes that look, and he’s intimately familiar with the danger that comes along with it.

“Well?” Chihiro raises one eyebrow slightly before realizing that dying in a maid costume would make demise by Akashi’s hand all the more worse, and quickly schools his face into what he hopes comes off as a neutral expression.

“The outfit suits you,” Akashi says, quietly enough for everyone except Chihiro to not hear.

Forget the Emperor Eye, this is Akashi’s _real_ demon power - the ability to charm anyone into becoming one of his devoted underlings, the skill to tear apart the solitary resolution of others with a single statement, the talent to make even someone as overlooked and ordinary as Chihiro feel irreplaceable, important, special.

“You really like honey, don’t you,” Chihiro mutters, because if he’s going to die a painful death anyway, he might as well have the last word.

“I don’t derive pleasure from the suffering of others,” Akashi states calmly. As much as Chihiro wants to burst out laughing in front of Akashi’s complete and utter horse-shit of a lie, Chihiro has _some_ sense of self-preservation left over, so he immediately bites the inside of his cheek hard enough to taste salty copper.

If Akashi notices any disruption in Chihiro’s poker face ( _let’s be real, nothing gets past Akashi_ , Chihiro mentally corrects himself), he does an excellent job of ignoring it. Akashi even takes a sip of tea from his teacup to punctuate his point, and Chihiro is mildly impressed that he doesn’t spit out the poor excuse for a beverage in offense. “Which is why I kindly offered my assistance to your class representative when she confided in the student council that your class couldn’t decide what to present for the cultural festival. Moe subculture is a uniquely Japanese phenomenon, after all.”

Chihiro vows on the spot to never skip any type of school-related meeting or function ever again.

**Author's Note:**

> The title is a loose translation of the Japanese proverb 他人の不幸は蜜の味 (schadenfreude).


End file.
